Category: Personal Experiences

I reflected on my family traditions over at Regnum Christi Live in a post that might be worth reading before Christmas. At first glance, some traditions seem meaningless. When I was a kid my family had a tradition to eat taco salad in the living room on New Year’s Eve. It was the only day …

After hearing foreign terms for religious life many times, I finally wrote my thoughts into an article. Isn’t it time to stop labeling religious communities with alien terms? I always wonder what commentators mean when they say a religious community is traditional or progressive, conservative or liberal. Why do we bring these foreign terms into …

I wrote a piece on foster-parenting including an anonymous testimony of a friend. Have you ever considered foster parenting? In the recent debate about adoption, why did the debate focus only on expensive infant adoptions? Why don’t we do more for these kids who have had a hard life? These questions – except being a …

I wrote a spiritual reflection on silence for Aleteia: Not long ago, I did an eight-day silent retreat. In my community we do this every year. Afterward I Tweeted out a short summary: “So often in prayer what really matters is something beyond words: the experience of God above what language can describe. I’d say the …

I wrote a book review on Aleteia: In The Catholic Hipster Handbook, writer Mary Rezac has a chapter on buying from the local farmer’s markets as a way of living the principle of subsidiarity, but she doesn’t go to the extreme of starting your own organic farm. Looking back on my life, I think I might have been …

I wrote a review of “Why I am Catholic?” by Brandon Vogt for Aleteia. When I was in my teens and 20s I loved apologetics books. I loved learning all these scriptural zingers to hit Protestants with. It made me feel secure in my faith. But then something changed. I realized this form of apologetics, …

An article I wrote a while back was finally published by Crux today. I recently had a hernia operation and was given a week’s worth of opioid painkillers for afterwards. Recovering from surgery, and dealing with the pain and discomfort inherent in such things, made me think about the current epidemic of addiction to painkillers …

Recently, The Federalist published a piece about male-female friendships called “Why Men and Women Can Never Be ‘Just Friends’” which was roundly criticized for its conclusions that male-female friendship is impossible. I got this from several people on Facebook and I don’t see a need to repeat. What gets me though is how it reduces male …

I wrote my monthly piece on Catholic Stand about the virtue of modesty: I get frustrated when I see this seemingly endless discussion in certain Catholic circles about how women should dress. How long should the skirt be? Are skinny jeans appropriate? How much cleavage is allowed? I also remember my sisters describing shopping for …

When we think about Mary, we tend to think a lot about how women have been helped. I know many men who have also been helped. A few weeks ago, Crossbound rosaries offered me one of their manly paracord rosaries. I want to offer it as the prize for the best story by a man about …

I’ve somehow succeeded on Twitter so I finally decided I would explain some of how I work. I did so in a series of tweets I’ll post here as a blog. A few practical tweets about my twitter. First, I use @buffer to schedule tweets constantly, I usually have a month or more in cue. …

I have commented a few times on what helps teens stay active in their faith. About 2 weeks ago, Catholic News Agency contacted me to interview for a story they were doing on a recent CARA study on the how many kids leave the Church. I later got a Google alert that I was mentioned on …